Apocalypse Gachapon

Chapter 1621: Fatherʼs request

Ye Zhongming moved at blinding speed. From the moment he charged, his plan had been clear. As he neared the behemoth’s head, the Soul Shattering Bone Staff in his hand erupted with a searing beam. He reserved only a sliver of mental energy for emergencies, pouring everything else into this soul weapon forged from the bones of an unknown Level 9 lifeform.

Trapped from the waist down, the Type V entity couldn’t dodge. Its colossal size granted it unmatched strength and devastating offense, but no agility.

To it, Ye Zhongming was little more than a pesky fly—easy to overlook.

The beam slammed into its head with brutal force. Even a structure as massive as a skyscraper would have reeled from the impact. Chunks of stone exploded outward, and the two gigantic flails, driven by momentum, lifted momentarily before crashing back down.

Ye Zhongming felt drained, but rest wasn’t an option. He kicked off the creature’s body, launching himself to eye level with the Type V cavalry. The barrel of his Harvester Mimicry Shooter jammed directly into the wound left by the bone staff.

Then—armor-piercing shot.

The ammunition? Blue-grade micro-engraved rounds.

Once he pulled the trigger, he never stopped.

Shot after shot. Skill after skill.

To the Type V stone knight, Ye Zhongming might as well have been a fly, and his weapon a needle.
But Ye Zhongming was no ordinary fly, and the Harvester was no mere needle—it was a purple-grade weapon, second only to seven-colored-grade arms. Coupled with skills and high-level ammunition, the Type V’s head jerked violently backward under the barrage until—CRACK—it shattered completely.

Ye Zhongming went flying, caught mid-air by Xia Bai. The impact sent the Female Guard captain off-balance, forcing Red Hair and Xiao Min to leap up and steady them. All four tumbled to the ground in a heap.

When they rose, Ye Zhongming’s armor lay in pieces, its surface smeared with blood he’d coughed up.

In its dying moments, the Type V knight had swung its flail. Despite dodging frantically—even using Blink—Ye Zhongming had been grazed.

That glancing blow alone had caused this.

But at least it was over.

The Type V’s remains collapsed into a mountain of rubble, with no higher-tier monster emerging. The trial, it seemed, had ended.

A collective sigh of relief swept through the survivors as they turned to treat the wounded. Thankfully, Cloud Peak’s warriors were high-level and well-equipped; though injuries were severe, no further deaths occurred—a small mercy in this brutal fight.

Ye Zhongming and the others took time to restore stamina, mental energy, and wounds. Dozens, however, were too severely injured to fight for days. Combined with the fallen, Cloud Peak had lost nearly 10% of its combat strength.

Facing the unknown path ahead, confidence wasn’t as high as when they’d started.

Ye Zhongming, being the highest-level and strongest, recovered first. As he stood, he noticed Old Man, the sole survivor of his squad, sitting nearby with a dazed expression.

This time, the entire Old Man Squad had perished—except their leader, who’d seen his members as his children.

Ye Zhongming understood his grief.

”Maybe we really shouldn’t have come in,” Old Man murmured when he noticed Ye Zhongming awake. The King of Cloud Peak had no words of comfort—just a pack of cigarettes. He remembered the man’s habit.

After a long drag, Old Man suddenly said, ”I want to live.”

Ye Zhongming studied this middle-aged man. In another life, he might have been collecting pensions, watching wrinkles form, surrounded by grandchildren in peaceful retirement.

Now? He wielded a blade, fighting monsters for survival.

His body no longer aged, but his world had been irrevocably shattered.

”One of my men said he had a kid in Feng City, back in the country. I want to see that with my own eyes.”

Ye Zhongming had heard countless similar claims across two lifetimes—some true, most false. He’d grown numb to them. But here, in this deadly space, surrounded by the rubble of Level 9 entities, he felt a prick of sympathy.

”Can you find them?”

”I kept his blood. Oh, and that guy saved for three years to buy some useless ʼkinship locatorʼ from a washed-up alchemist. Knew he was getting scammed, but bought it anyway. Thing only works within 500 meters.”

Old Man laughed bitterly, recalling how desperate his squad had been upon hearing about the device. If not for that, his comrade—roughly equal in strength to himself—might still be alive.

Ye Zhongming shook his head. In a megacity like Feng City, 500 meters was worse than finding a needle in a haystack. More likely, the person was dead or long gone.

Still, he pressed a healing potion into Old Man’s hands.

”Whether you live depends on fate now.”

Old Man rubbed his eyes, whispering to Ye Zhongming’s retreating back, ”I’ll repay you.” Too quiet to be heard—not out of insincerity, but lack of confidence.

”Boss.” Xiao Min approached. ”We cleared the rubble. Found a few things.”

Relatively unharmed, she’d led a team to sift through the debris. Ye Zhongming had only hoped for clues, but they’d struck actual loot.

Beside the now-filled pit, several objects stood out.

The largest was a crate full of stones.

Picking up a few, Ye Zhongming immediately noticed their difference.

At a glance, they resembled ordinary rocks, but closer inspection revealed intricate patterns on their surfaces, their texture unnaturally smooth.

Given the sheer volume of rubble from the Type V’s remains, this crate’s few hundred stones were a minuscule fraction.

After brief examination yielded no insights, Ye Zhongming stored them for later.

The other two items were more intriguing.

One was a bizarre metal sphere, roughly three meters in diameter, its surface studded with buttons and a display screen.

”Human Refining Furnace!”

That was the name that popped into Ye Zhongming’s mind upon claiming it—ridiculous, but undeniable.

Setting it aside for now, he turned to the third item:

A stone statue.

And its likeness?

The very stone cavalry they’d just fought.